i wanted to keep the framerate of the timeline to be 24fps for editing a slow motion video shot at 50fps. but accidentally i kept the timeline fps setting to 50fps and edited all my videos and my final looks very odd(speedy playback, unsual speed etc) how can i change the timeline framerate settings now after the editing is done. is it possible? or should i start the editing all over again (which is a lot of pain) plz help me out. DAVINCI RESOLVE 12.5

kiran bale wrote:how can i change the timeline framerate settings now after the editing is done. is it possible?

No. Once you have imported media into the browser, even before creating a timeline, the project frame rate is locked.

The first thing I might try is to export an XML or AAF to synthesize a round trip and then launder the sequence through an NLE that allows multiple frame rate sequences within a project. You will still be faced with trimming the original edit for gaps and poor in/out matching, but perhaps less effort than completely starting from scratch.

This probably won't work and even if it could it might depend on the settings you have for mixed frame rates in the conform section in project settings, but you could try exporting an XML from Resolve, opening it in Text Edit (or similar) and wherever it says '<timebase>50</timebase>', change it to say '<timebase>24</timebase>'. Then make a new project at 24fps and import the modified XML. Long shot but worth a try.

kiran bale wrote:i wanted to keep the framerate of the timeline to be 24fps for editing a slow motion video shot at 50fps. but accidentally i kept the timeline fps setting to 50fps and edited all my videos and my final looks very odd(speedy playback, unsual speed etc) how can i change the timeline framerate settings now after the editing is done. is it possible? or should i start the editing all over again (which is a lot of pain) plz help me out. DAVINCI RESOLVE 12.5

hi, delete all your media, then go to the project settings and change the project frame rate to the desired. Save and close the settings tab. UNDO (cmd+z/ctrl+z) and the media that you deleted is restored but the change you made in the settings stays the same. This also works if you want to change the mixed frame rate option.

I am wondering if there is another editing software that doesn't allow you to change the project's framerate after the initial selection. Premiere used to be like this many years ago but somehow they solved it. I hope BMD will find a way to solve this as well.

Edius as well.Changing fps is very problematic.Lets say you have 25p sources and done exiting in 25p timeline. All good here. Now you want to change to eg. 29.97. How in your opinion timeline should behave?You want edit points stay the same which means there is only 1 way to achieve this- in fly fps conversion. This already will cause massive problems: either crazy jerky files (due to repeated/dropped frames) or artefacts after motion compensated conversion (which will also massively slow down timeline responsivness).One thing which can be done is to allow changes for the same fps base, so for example 25p, 25i and also 50p (as you can simply drop every 2nd frame).Overall problem here is the same as trying to convert final 25p master into 29.97p one. Actually it's 100x bigger as you are asking for everything to happen in realtime in the background, so you can keep working 'as normal' on your timeline. Not a single software can do this. The ones which do, produce bad end results as there is no magic in case of fps missmatch. It's crazy difficult problem.Every master which has fps different than original assets is a compromise stright away. In some cases small one (eg 25p and 50p) in other cases huge one ( when fps conversion is invoved).Solution is simple- think 10x about fps befor you set camera to one and start shooting.

One important thing to remember is that Resolve (like many NLEs and color-correction devices) are all databases, and the frame rate is a very important supporting foundation that holds the entire project together. As a result, you have to make that decision very carefully when starting any project.

Jose Santos' workaround above can work provided you have just one timeline involved. I would make sure you back up the project before attempting this.

If you have a 24fps project, but did all the editing at 50fps, I would say (from my perspective) you're basically screwed and will need to start over. It doesn't have to be needlessly difficult and time-consuming, since the hard work -- making the edit decisions -- is already done. I would just render out a reference movie with the names of the clips and the clip timecode embedded as visual TC, then use that as a reference to rebuild the entire project at 24fps. Assuming there are only a few hundred cuts, this is not a ridiculously difficult job. Heck, you could hire an assistant editor and let them do it in half a day for a couple of hundred dollars (if this was a paying gig).

BTW, make sure you want true 24fps and not 23.976fps, because that's also a tricky change.

I prefer that BMD create a Davinci Resolve with consistent bases. By allowing to manage projects with variable geometry, nothing solid will emerge.

Why would the option to change a Timeline's frame-rate make an inconsistent base? It is an assistive feature for those times you started editing in the wrong frame-rate for a while before you realize you should be editing in another.

Speeding up/slowing down would work for 23.976p/24p/25p or 29.97p/30p (or similar changes), but any "big" fps change would give basically useless result.

You have to understand that you should always set project to your source fps. Any mismatch is always a compromise and can cause massive issues. As I said- think 10x about fps before you start shooting. Once shooting is done it's in many cases to late.

There is no such a thing like: "I shot at 24p but going to edit now at 60p or 50p or whatever". This works only for certain/specific cases.

Plus, consider that several of the top NLEs and color grading packages have not implemented the ability to substantially change the project framerate - I'm guessing the reason for this is that it is difficult to implement.

Of course, it should be possible to output in any framerate regardless of the project framerate, but that's a different topic, really.

I prefer that BMD create a Davinci Resolve with consistent bases. By allowing to manage projects with variable geometry, nothing solid will emerge.

Why would the option to change a Timeline's frame-rate make an inconsistent base? It is an assistive feature for those times you started editing in the wrong frame-rate for a while before you realize you should be editing in another.

Hi Miltos ,

Why ? There is too much situation where a change of fps of a project can completely denature the result:As all editing is in the database, how should Davinci Resolve do?- cut?- effect- cross dissolve, fade?- keyframe?- tracking?- stabilization?- retime?- render cache?- optimized media?- audio? Time-streching?etc ???

You are assuming we are talking about a 1:1 perfect solution while i am referring to the original poster's problem. All I want is a quick solution to transfer most of my edit decisions from one framerate to another when a frame rate mistake was made in the beginning.

I don't want to throw away the hours I have spent editing. I want a quick solution to get most of my edit there and then adjust everything that didn't transfer well.

Recently we started editing a 25fps TV commercial but for a strange reason one of the shots was in 24fps. It happened that this damn shot was the first we added in the timeline so it was set at 24fps while everything else was in 25fps. We edited for hours before we discovered the mistake.

There is not a single editor that I know of who didn't have this problem for one reason or another. It has happened at least 5 times to me the last 10 years and I was thrilled when Premiere added this as a feature. I felt like it saved my life once.

That's why I prefer software were you set fps manually. It forces you to think about it.On short content 24 v25 is ok- adjustments will be fair small, so it could work.On long content and eg. 25 v 30 your cuts will be miles off.

My advice is to actually take a proper approach to project setups. Make a simple list of important things and before you start any longer project go through it. Sounds idiotic, but only until you find yourself in situation like you are now and realise it could be so easily avoided (it takes <5min).I use to do a lot "important" work and even if sometimes I was in crazy rush I learnt to check all key elements at least 2x. Now I do it even for fairly simple tasks, it just works

Marc Wielage wrote:One important thing to remember is that Resolve (like many NLEs and color-correction devices) are all databases, and the frame rate is a very important supporting foundation that holds the entire project together. As a result, you have to make that decision very carefully when starting any project.

I don't see how it being a database matters. What's it storing for time values? Four 8-bit integers (h:m:s:f) per entry? That's 32 bits. You could store that as a 32-bit float and represent a project timeline 76 hours long at 60fps timecode with exact integer precision. If you need perfect integer precision beyond that, 64-bit float gives you something like 4000 millennia.

How many in and out points and keyframes do you have in a project? 100,000? That would mean representing those as doubles would make your project database 400KB larger. Seems like a reasonable tradeoff.

Jason Tackaberry wrote:Just to be pedantic, you would want to pack those time values into a 32 or 64 bit integer in order to maintain lossless precision, not a float (which is lossy).

I was thinking float would be useful for arbitrary math, so you could scale time however you needed, but you're right, you could do that with integers if you just made the value of each integer small enough that no one cared if you were off a bit because of rounding.

Like if you did nanoseconds as your unit, 64 bits would get you a timeline ~60 years long.

Jean Claude wrote:Why ? There is too much situation where a change of fps of a project can completely denature the result:

Who cares?

Let's say you set the project to 120fps and now you want to render out an h264, which means you have to render 30fps. Just output every 4th frame. Done.

Because Resolve can't fmod(frame,4), I have to do some crazy workaround that involves exporting many gigabytes of data? Seems crazy to me.

I would be tempted to advise you to see on the side of avisynth + orVapourSynth. There are excellent solutions. We can almost do whatever we want.

Indeed, there are many solutions for this. But they all involve having Resolve write out many gigabytes of data. I completely understand there being limits on what Resolve can render out, I just think some of the constraints are almost deliberately set too low.

In the first few lines there'll be something reads: <duration>720</duration>

This needs to be changed to the duration in frames when calculated for whatever frame rate your changing to.

In this instance:<duration>750</duration>

Save xml.

In resolve, start new project.

Change settings for 25fps (or whatever your after).

Import xml.

Change start frame on sequence to whatever you prefer.

It should be shorter than your original sequence.

And some clips will start earlier.

But the structure and shot selection should be retained.

IF YOU HAVE DONE WHAT WAS PREVIOUSLY SUGGESTED where you copy the project. delete everything in media poolchange settings to desired fpscontrol/command-z to undo deleting media pool, so media pool is populatedTHEN import xmlyou can cut/paste supers, gfx, shots into prefered fps timeline.

If you want to "launder" it through another NLE that will allow this, FCPX might be a decent choice because its XML interchange is fairly good. However, I've only tested going from FCPX->Da Vinci for color, and then round-tripping back. But it's worth a shot, since Da Vinci will export FCPXML versions, including the latest, 1.6.

From there, import that into FCPX and cross your fingers. In FCPX you can have any number of timelines all in the same project (library), with many different framerates. You should make a new timeline (called "projects" in FCPX) with the target framerate. Then go into the timeline that you imported, CMD-A to select all clips, CMD-C to copy, then open the target timeline, and paste everything into there. You will almost always have to adjust some frames here and there because of this conversion.

This is all dependent on how complicated your timeline is, and whether you use a lot of features that don't translate well. A big advantage with the interchange with FCPX is that a lot of speed changes/ramps will translate properly.

Chad Capeland wrote:I don't see how it being a database matters. What's it storing for time values? Four 8-bit integers (h:m:s:f) per entry? That's 32 bits. You could store that as a 32-bit float and represent a project timeline 76 hours long at 60fps timecode with exact integer precision.

I wish it were that simple. There are similar problems with other kinds of software, so this is not confined to just Resolve.

One key I think is to understand the limitations under which you have to work and then find a way to accomplish what you need to do. Otherwise, you're asking a boat to drive down a freeway. From my point of view, you'd be better off choosing a car instead of a boat and just using that.

I'm not a programmer, but I've used an awful lot of editing systems and color systems in 30 years, and frame rate is one of those lynch-pins that holds the entire structure together. The risk of tampering with that is that things can fall apart very quickly. If every frame of every shot could have 1000 different parameters (not impossible, when it comes to sizing, color, keys, composites, effects nodes, and so on), but now the rate at which these parameters change has changed, and relative number of frames has changed, then there's going to be a huge amount of math to be done.

It could be worse: in the early days of HD, where we were dealing with 1080i projects, 720p projects, 25fps projects, 24fps projects, 29.97 projects, and 30fps projects, and then people wanted to use several of these kinds of shots in a single project... it was invariably a trainwreck. At the least, horrible visual artifacts would result. Timings changed. It's always much preferable to make an informed decision on what speed you want at the beginning and then stick to it for that specific project. That's Workflow 101.

Really?You have 25p project and then change it to 29.97. It will preserve cuts, but now export this new project as 29.97 and play on TV.Premiere has to interpolate missing frames and this will be far from perfect (either jerky or full of motion adaptive artefacts).If this would be 25p<=>50p then this would work fine as you need to either remove or repeat every frame.

Any project fps changes (where time base is different)= massive problems and there is no escape from this. It's not a matter of A or B NLE, but matter of fps conversion which is far from being easy. It will never be perfect.

hi, delete all your media, then go to the project settings and change the project frame rate to the desired. Save and close the settings tab. UNDO (cmd+z/ctrl+z) and the media that you deleted is restored but the change you made in the settings stays the same. This also works if you want to change the mixed frame rate option.[/quote]

+1 for checking the settings before starting. I have dummy projects setup - different frame rates, different resolutions. so when I want to create a 25fps 1080 project I open my dummy "25fps 1080" project, save it to the name of the new project and voila, my main settings are all done, plus my footage , gfx, audio fx, music etc etc bins are already there.

That way I know for sure what I'm working in.

Seems easier to check the fps then it is for BMD engineers to come up with a rewrite of coding, deciding how changed edit points should be handled, test, implement, roll out,etc etc etc - only to find some will be happy with the solution and others won't be

Prashant wrote:hi, delete all your media, then go to the project settings and change the project frame rate to the desired. Save and close the settings tab. UNDO (cmd+z/ctrl+z) and the media that you deleted is restored but the change you made in the settings stays the same. This also works if you want to change the mixed frame rate option.

Hey, you are a wizard! So if it's actually that simple, why haven't the geniuses at Blackmagic Design configured that as a function in Resolve?!? This is a major defect in my opinion. I have to shift between frame rates because some UHD devices need 30FPS, while others will work at 60fps. I'm not going to re-build an entire timeline just to shift frame rate. This is the 21st Century; we're not all working at 24fps anymore.

My solution (but requires additional software):1. Export timeline in Final Cut 7 XML2. Import into Adobe Premiere3. Change the sequences settings in Premiere to whatever you need4. Export from Premiere to Final Cut XML5. Start brand new project in Resolve with correct sequence settings6. In Resolve, under File menu select "Import Timeline"7. Select the new XML you created in Premiere...and you're done.

Well nearly, you might find some effects and titles missing/offline. Audio track settings might not be exact but overall, it should save lots of re-editing.

Now why can't this process be simple as it is in Premiere where you literally just change the sequence settings. Why does it need all this faff?

kiran bale wrote:i wanted to keep the framerate of the timeline to be 24fps for editing a slow motion video shot at 50fps. but accidentally i kept the timeline fps setting to 50fps and edited all my videos and my final looks very odd(speedy playback, unsual speed etc) how can i change the timeline framerate settings now after the editing is done. is it possible? or should i start the editing all over again (which is a lot of pain) plz help me out. DAVINCI RESOLVE 12.5

hi, delete all your media, then go to the project settings and change the project frame rate to the desired. Save and close the settings tab. UNDO (cmd+z/ctrl+z) and the media that you deleted is restored but the change you made in the settings stays the same. This also works if you want to change the mixed frame rate option.

You're a genius! It worked for me. I thought I had set my project up for 23.976, but despite all my multicam sequences and etc. being correct, the main timeline I created was somehow 24. I wasted 30 minutes trying to solve what should have been a 5 second fix. I understand the limitations and caveats in changing framerates, and generally I am fine with how Resolve does it most of the time...but man it does suck to think you have a project set up right, only to find out it's not and have to resort to voodoo to fix it. At least the ability to create timelines with different framerates in the same project would be wonderful.But at the very least, if the footage is correct and you're not even requiring Resolve to interpret it differently, it should be a no brainer.

José Santos wrote:hi, delete all your media, then go to the project settings and change the project frame rate to the desired. Save and close the settings tab. UNDO (cmd+z/ctrl+z) and the media that you deleted is restored but the change you made in the settings stays the same. This also works if you want to change the mixed frame rate option.

Please note that this approach is not recommended and may lead to playback issues, loss of sync and problems when rendering.

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:It's and think 3x every time before you create new timeline

If only even that were the case! Not being able to change timelines themselves is a limitation I'd happily live with. Having the entire project frame rate locked the minute you import footage (especially when the footage is correct and your project is wrong) is nothing but a major pain.

José Santos wrote:hi, delete all your media, then go to the project settings and change the project frame rate to the desired. Save and close the settings tab. UNDO (cmd+z/ctrl+z) and the media that you deleted is restored but the change you made in the settings stays the same. This also works if you want to change the mixed frame rate option.

This, in fact, does work! Just tried it changing the project frame rate from 24 to 60. Created a new timeline with 60 fps clip, and the timeline is 60 fps. Project settings still 60 fps. When I Ctrl-Z, everything came back that was there. The old original timeline was still at 24, tho, which wouldn't help the OP in this case (I don't think), but project fps was now updated, and I still had all my clips in the Pool. Cool trick though, José!

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:It's and think 3x every time before you create new timeline

If only even that were the case! Not being able to change timelines themselves is a limitation I'd happily live with. Having the entire project frame rate locked the minute you import footage (especially when the footage is correct and your project is wrong) is nothing but a major pain.

Agreed, both are limitations, as seen by someone coming from Premiere Pro. I would love to know WHY this is not changeable in Resolve. What would be the purpose, programmatically, for forcing a fixed frame rate for your entire project, set and never changeable upon first import, and for each timeline being the same. Premiere uses a different approach where each Sequence (Timeline) is its own entity with its own properties and settings. Project settings in Premiere are practically non-existent. It seems Resolve's approach is to raise that level of refinement to the overall Project level (reducing flexibility?), perhaps as if multiple timelines were somewhat of an afterthought. I don't suspect it is related to the integration of the other Pages, as each one (I presume) just passes the current timeline to the receiving Page when switched. What is preventing us from having different timelines with different FPS? Is it an overall, or original, design decision that we've gone too far now to reverse, or is it something that can be changed? Very curious.

GrizzlyAK wrote:Agreed, both are limitations, as seen by someone coming from Premiere Pro. I would love to know WHY this is not changeable in Resolve.

I'll give you my opinion: timecode is one of the corner "underpinnings" for the entire Resolve database, in that everything -- pixel size, color, position, etc. -- all hinges on frame-by-frame advancement of timecode. If you change this, every single aspect -- color dissolves, power window shifts, image repositions, speed ramps/changes, keyframes -- now also must change. As it is, I think it's a miracle that Resolve can work independently in terms of resolution, which is no small feat. To expect it to also do this for framerate is very, very difficult.

You could say it's like being on a railroad train, and somebody decides to change the tracks underneath you while the train is running. I say that's dangerous. You basically have to make the decision on what framerate (what kind of tracks) on which you're going to be traveling before you fire up the engine and start moving forward. If you don't do that... there's a good chance the train will come off the tracks.

If you can't accept that, no problem -- move on to one of the many competing programs out there, and may the timecode gods be with you. But I honestly think there are moments in life where you have to worry more about the things you CAN change than waste time worrying about the things you CAN'T change. Resolve project framerate is one of them.

Isn't the fps the first thing you do when you make a project? Resolve always ask to change the timeline settings according to your footage. This is your foundation for the project. It's a good lesson to learn, sadly the hard way this time.

Vess Stoytchev wrote:Isn't the fps the first thing you do when you make a project? Resolve always ask to change the timeline settings according to your footage. This is your foundation for the project. It's a good lesson to learn, sadly the hard way this time.

Often you need to work with different frame rates inside one project.NLEs do it if the frame rate can be setting for Timeline not for whole project.

The Delivery page also has no option of exporting to any frame rate. The export would apply to the Mixed frame rate setting.

Many frame rates inside 1 project (with many timelines ) are fine. Resolve doesn't work this way atm. Not many NLEs actually do.Many fps inside 1 timeline is huge problem and not easy to solve.

Tell me scenario when you need to switch fps after half/all of the editing is done?

If you want to edit in eg. 25p but then require 29.97p output and want just switch fps then this is not going to work. Not a single NLE will produce proper result in such a case. Fact that some allow to change project fps doesn't mean much. This work ok only if time base is the same- eg 25p and 50p.